Guest post by “Apple participates in the Web Application Working Group. In application of the exclusion rights they have according to the W3C Patent Policy, Apple Inc. excluded Patent Nr. 7,743,336 and Patent Application 20070101146 from its Royalty Free commitment given upon joining the Web Applications Working Group. According to Apple Inc., both read on the Widget Access Request Policy Specification. Apple Inc.’s exclusion triggered a Patent Advisory Group (PAG). The PAG is using this page to collect links and hints to technology that may help to circumvent the patent. This information may be useful to help the Web Applications Working Group to design around the excluded patent and allow for a Royalty Free Widget Access Request Policy Specification.”
Apple’s application for these patents is unconscionable. Apple are software patent trolls, unable to come up with a real patented hardware technology and even though software patents aren’t worth the paper they’re written on in Europe, the cost of Apple strong-arming companies in the US will be past on to consumers world wide. Scum, unable to compete on merit. Capitalism my ass!
Yes, and yet, sadly, there are so many tech guys that continue to buy Apple products, basically encouraging Apple to remain the piece of sh*t company that it is now. I understand those that don’t have a clue about technology buying iStuff but I don’t understand those tech guys that don’t care about the technology environment.
There are so many patents flying around it might soon be impssible to write a line of code without breaking one.
In many industries companies are going after every patent they can. Even the obvious ones. Why?
Because if they don’t get them sure as eggs is egss, another company, probably a competitor will get them.
Until the laws get changed as much as it galls me you can’t realistically stop a company from using the patents they hold. If they didn’t other companies would not be so altruistic.
The ONLY people who win here are the lawyers. Everyone else is a loser.
IMHO, I reserve the phrase ‘Patent Trolls’ for those companies who only exist to get money for the patents which they (mostly) have bought and not invented themselves.
Again IMHO, Apple do not fit into that bracket.
I too agree, sadly.
Apple is not the bad guy here, but a symptom of the industry. All “companies” are doing the exact same thing. Apple has sued and been sued on countless occasions, so understands the situation way more than most of us “computer chair” commentators 🙂
The day we can abolish these laws the better!!
To the extent that apple uses patents because they’re part of the game, then apple is merely exercising it’s rights and any harm to competitors is not apple’s problem.
To the extent that apple is playing outside the game to influence the political process in ways which are contrary to what most of us need and want, then apple is guilty.
I thought the W3C was to create standards for the web? Why are they implementing security measures for widgets to access network and/or file system resources? Shouldn’t this be something the OS manufacturer (i.e. Apple) implements into their OS, not web standards.
Better question: Why would the W3C allow Apple in if they weren’t going to commit these patents to the royalty free standard? This technology should not even be considered for use. The patent only has value if the W3C makes it part of a standard. Well, maybe even without, but I would think this is just going to be a pain in peoples butt. I don’t think this will turn into a pay day for Apple.
Let’s hope the prior art is found. Or that software patents get invalid in the US. But that’s unlikely because a few companies will pay enough people in the government to prevent that.
Edited 2011-07-16 18:18 UTC
Haven’t looked at the Apple claim in detail but seems like the guys at ROX linux distribution might have had a similar policy for their app distribution from their store long time back before Apple came into the scene.